[lit-ideas] Re: "Reading Lolita in Tehran" - "Why one shouldbother to re...
- From: John Wager <johnwager@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 22:42:51 -0500
Once upon a time, Many MANY years ago, my Freshman English teacher asked
us all to write a book report. I wanted to do one on THE AGE OF
IDEOLOGY, a philosophical work. She said it HAD to be a novel. I said
why? -- A novel is either philosophy or trivial details of no
significance. She said it HAD to be a novel. This was probably NOT a
good way to start my college career....
BUT it was a great accidental start to answer the question here. I have
come to realize that there is something essentially satisfying about
stories, about plots, that discursive writing doesn't have. Telling a
story, or listening to a story, gives structure to time, and that's what
life really is: Time. It doesn't matter whether the story is "true" or
"fiction," it's the telling and the listening that make stories so
fascinating. "Non-fictional" narratives convey truths about external
events, but "fictional" narratives convey truths about human imagination
and human desires and human creativity that non-fictional narratives
can't convey.
JulieReneB@xxxxxxx wrote:
>I can't explain it or make it make rational or philosophical sense right now,
>but sometimes fiction is a more powerful conveyor of Truth than is fact. I
>said, I can't explain it. It just is.
>Julie
>========Original Message========
>Subj:[lit-ideas] Re: "Reading Lolita in Tehran" - "Why one should bother to
>read fiction at all"
>Date:4/26/2004 9:24:46 AM Central Daylight Time
>From:cmharris@xxxxxxxxxx
>To:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Sent on:
>
>At 10:32 PM 25/04/2004 -0400, Mohammad wrote:
>
>
>
>>I'm greatly enjoying reading "Reading Lolita in Tehran", and although I'm o=
>>nly one third of the way through the book, one question had been nagging me=
>>. At the top of page 94, it was spelt out for me:
>>
>>"That first day I asked my students what they thought fiction should accomp=
>>lish, why one should bother to read fiction at all."
>>
>>So I ask you, with full understanding that the question exposes my ignoranc=
>>e and betrays the my lack of sophistication: Why bother read fiction?
>>
>>
>
>This is a very interesting question for me too, as I tend to read 'factual'
>books - and yet watch fictional films without thinking twice about that. I
>don't limit my tv to documentaries and the news either. Recently I went on
>a writing course intending to discover new ways to approach the problem of
>writing a family history and of managing the huge amounts of raw material I
>have acquired - but the course turned out to be more of a course in writing
>" creative non-fiction" which tries to straddle the two genres. The factual
>side of it turned into a paper hunt for verifiable details, following a
>predetermined chronology - but the fictional seemed to tap into a
>subconscious interpretation of the facts, and revealed to me when I read
>what I had written - not evident to me as i was writing - much clearer
>truths about the relationships between different people or the impact of
>the factual upon them. For example, the fact might be that I immigrated to
>Canada on such and such a day and travelled from Montreal to Ottawa - but
>the fictional account of persons on the bus and my thoughts as I made the
>journey are more revealing of what it is to experience being an immigrant.
>So having tried this exercise I am now looking at and enjoying fiction and
>giving it more credibility as a revealer of "truth" than I did before. It
>seems to me that much of what Nafisi writes is creative non-fiction - ie
>she writes conversations and descriptions of events which are based on her
>remembered knowledge of the events but not necessarily completely accurate
>facts.
>
>
>
>>I ask because the parts that I enjoyed most from the book were the factual =
>>ones, not the fictional books discussed.
>>
>>For example, it is tragic to learn what the story of "Lolita" really was - =
>>again, apologies for my ignorance, but I had always thought that Lolita was=
>> a story of a child seducing an older man. I'd never read the book. "Readin=
>>g Lolita in Tehran" explained to me that the story was of a pedophile murde=
>>ring a child's mother then imprisoning and abusing the child. It's rather s=
>>ad and moving and I feel guilty that I had not known what the story was abo=
>>ut.
>>
>>
>
>
>I hadn't read Nabokovs "Lolita " before either - read it in order to
>appreciate "Reading Lolita" - and to my surprise really enjoyed the book.
>Its much more than the story as you describe it Mohammad and well worth the
>read. I have also rushed through The Great Gatsby and will be interested to
>hear others comments on that section in due course.
>
>I would like to continue but am out of time
>
>Best
>
>Ceri
>
>
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